


So Don't Let It Kill You

by jane_potter



Series: The Riotverse [3]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Child Abuse, Drugged Sex, F/M, Gang Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-04
Updated: 2010-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-11 11:23:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_potter/pseuds/jane_potter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uhura's life is never about winning. It's always about not letting somebody else win. Not surrendering. Not letting them beat her, figuratively or literally. This is a good thing, because life's not a game. There are no time outs, no rule books, no umpires, and nobody wins. They just survive. Or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Five to Sixteen

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by OtakuLibra's comment that Riotverse Uhura and Gaila needed to be more BAMF than they usually are. It took me by surprise, because I originally intended to go with just the usual level of badassery, but I realised that they really did need to be more than that. It's really given me a chance to explore a facet of the Riotverse that doesn't show from Kirk and Spock's POVs. I also drew inspiration from 's excellent post on [slut-shaming](http://affectingly.livejournal.com/456994.html) and 's meta about the [Trek twenty-third century](http://medie.livejournal.com/1726525.html), as well as various other meta posts on female strength in fiction. Quite obviously, this is the most difficult thing I've ever written.

Uhura's life is never about winning.

It's always about not letting somebody else win. Not surrendering. Not letting them beat her, figuratively or literally.

This is a good thing, because life's not a game. There are no time outs, no rule books, no umpires, and _nobody _wins. They just survive. Or not.

That's fine with Uhura. By the time she's nineteen, she's learned that breaking the rules is a strategy much more to her liking, anyway.

**5.**

Her father tells her bedtime stories. They all start with, "Once upon a time," and it isn't until many years later that Uhura realises the great wisdom inherent in this tiny, cliche childhood statement. The universe is too large, too diverse and too infinitely full of possibilities for the most insignificant of molecular flickers to have even a _chance _of happening exactly the same way twice, let alone entire lives and plotlines like the ones her father sits on the edge of her bed and spins. But when she's five, Uhura doesn't know this yet. Her world is very, very small.

Once upon a time the world was a vast, limitless place, and its enormity was so far beyond the conception of the people who lived upon it that some of them thought it was possible to simply fall off the ends of the planet called Earth. They couldn't fathom that anything could lay so far beyond the limits of what they knew. Then the world began to shrink: oceans became navigable, mountains passable, skies conquerable. Distance became all but irrelevant. Even time slowed, for where once it had taken weeks or months to deliver twelve or fourteen paragraphs of writing crammed onto a fragile sheet of wood pulp, entire conversations could take place across the globe in six directions in less time than it took to brew a cup of tea. Humans made their planet shrink until the very marrow and mass of it was insignificant to their casual everyday whims.

Then, one dark day, instead of the princess arriving to save the prince from his tall tower (even back then Uhura didn't want to hear about girls who couldn't save themselves), the aliens arrived. (Close enough.) And the humans, on their tiny shrunken planet, looked up at the galaxies hovering around the edges of their conceivable world and realised for the first time that not only were the stars _not _the end of the map, but that there had already been maps drawn of the stars back when humans were still inventing dragons to fill in the blanks at the margins of their parchments.

And for a while everything was impossibly, overwhelmingly huge. But distance is a challenge, and _all _living beings have a desire in some form or another to overcome challenges. So humans-- and Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Betazoids, Klingons, Romulans-- shrunk the universe, or what little they all knew of it, anyway. They cast out their ships like fishing nets and hauled in lightyears and galaxies worth of stardust, linking everything in together tight with outposts and starbases and satellites and colonies, reeling in the universe little by little.

Maybe one day they'll feel a pull on the net, and find some other corner of the universe trying to haul in from another direction, and the maps will explode once more.

But not yet.

For now, Uhura's world is small.

**10.**

Fu Marcosa-17 sits in the middle of Union space, about mid way between Earth and the border zone. They're a halfway point, a pit stop for thousands upon thousands of thirsty, lonely spacers and Starfleet officers who come looking for good alcohol and "good company" (whatever that means), not necessarily in that order. Uhura knows every one of her 9,208 neighbours on the starbase, as she has known them since the day of her birth, but the hundreds of hard-eyed strangers who stream through the mezzazine and entertainment decks every day still intimidate her. She doesn't like their uniforms or the way they always travel in packs, marching shoulder to shoulder with their hands on their phasers even when off duty. Walking home from school can be an unnerving experience, particularly when the lifts that she usually takes are inoperative and she has to walk across the mezzazine to get to the lifts on the other side of it.

"Hi," she says slowly, to the stranger standing in the middle of her living room. Somewhat uncertainly, Uhura puts her shoulder bag full of school PADDs on the floor beside the door and doesn't take her eyes off the man. He looks lost and has luggage at his feet. She thinks vaguely that maybe there's been a mix up with his apartment lock chits; sometimes it happens in the starbase's mainframe that addresses or door codes get reissued and some newcomer winds up with a set of chits telling him that somebody else's home is his. "I live here," she tells him, in case this is the situation. "My name is Uhura."

The man's expression doesn't change, except to grow more bewildered.

Uhura is relieved when her mother appears from the bedroom opposite the front door, a half folded blanket in her hands. "He doesn't speak Francohili," she says, shaking out the blanket. There's a frown between her eyebrows, drawing them in tight.

"Oh," Uhura says, then repeats in polite Standard, "I'm Uhura. I live here."

"I live here too," he says, looking at her a bit like Uhura's teacher does when zhe thinks Uhura is being stupid.

From that day on, he does. His name is Tom (what kind of name is _that_, Uhura wonders) and he's her mother's half-brother's brother, or her uncle. Pretty soon he gets a job as security in the public mezzazine. He also gets Uhura's bedroom, because a backwater starbase like Fu Marcosa-17 doesn't provide apartments bigger than two chambers, a fresher and a kitchen/living room to anybody below J deck, and he gets time in the fresher and a portion of her family's monthly water ration, and he gets a share of her mother's patience and her father's time, and Uhura's world gets a little more crowded as she moves her bed into the storage closet next to the front door.

She doesn't like Tom any more than the other strangers in her life. He doesn't call her 'station trash' or 'dumb backwater bitch', and he doesn't look at her with hard military eyes, but the expression in his eyes-- whatever it is-- is equally unsettling and he gradually starts wearing his phaser around the apartment for longer and longer each day after work. He watches her constantly. Finally, Uhura can't stand to be in the same room as Tom when her parents aren't around, and she doesn't even know _why_, but instead she shuts herself in her closet each day after school, jams the lock with a bit of wire and stays there until her father comes home from work too.

School runs late one day; Uhura has to stay and finish putting the language settings of all the desks and boards in the classroom back to Standard. Her teacher doesn't believe it was an accident, but honest, it was. Uhura had only set her _own _desk to Francohili. How was she supposed to know that a glitch in the computer system would end up bouncing it to every screen in the classroom?

The chronometer says that it's long after suppertime already. Uhura runs, her school bag banging against her leg, but when she gets to the escalators leading down to the mezzazine, she finds it packed, thronging with Fleet officers taking their shoreleave. "Dammit," she says in Francohili, glancing around quick to make sure nobody noticed. They haven't; they just brush past her on their way down the escalators.

A lump chokes her throat. She can't go down there, not even to get to the lifts on the mezzazine floor right below her. There's too many _people_, too many red-shirted soldiers and yellow-shirted officers, and they might _arrest _her, or--

"Uhura. What are you doing here at this time of night?" Tom grabs her elbow too hard, pulling her away from the escalators. "Your parents have been worrying about you for hours. You're _late_."

"I'm sorry, I-- I thought Zhis Caph commed them to say I had to stay at school, I--"

Still holding her arm, Tom walks away down one of the corridors, and Uhura has to struggle to keep up with his pace. "Zhe did," he snaps. "Your parents are so mad. You're such a bad girl."

"What? No, I didn't mean to--" Uhura trips and nearly falls over. Tom wrenches on her arm to keep her upright. Involuntary tears spring to her eyes. "I'm not--"

"You're a terrible girl. They're furious with you."

Uhura gulps for breath against the sudden weight in her chest. No she's not, no she's _not_; she doesn't want to be a bad girl, she always goes to school on time and doesn't spend her credits on the entertainment decks and doesn't ever go up to the level above C deck because daddy told her not to, and so she doesn't, she doesn't ever.

She doesn't recognise the corridors Tom leads her down. They get into a lift and come out somewhere else, and Uhura's never even been in this part of the starbase and she's lost. Bewildered, she tries to catch a glimpse of the deck plates at corridor junctions as they pass, but they don't help. She doesn't know where they are.

"Stop," she begs, trying to dig in her heels without getting dragged over. "Please. I'm not a bad girl. Can we just go home?"

"No," Tom says, frowning at her. His unsettling eyes stare for a long time, until Uhura miserably twists her arm again in his grip. "I told you, they're mad at you. You have to be punished."

Punished? Her father's never had to spank her, not even once! Uhura's not-- she's not a--

Tom pushes her into a public fresher, out of the empty hallway. Uhura's trying not to cry, gulping back sobs in her chest. She's _not _a bad girl.

"I'm sorry," she says miserably, tears shiny and blurry in her eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"But you've been very bad. Everybody's mad at you, Uhura. You can't just get away with this, you know. You have to be punished."

Uhura starts to cry in earnest. Her heads nods up and down without her even thinking about it, big wrenching sobs shaking her whole body, her shoulders sinking in with shame and humiliation. She barely feels Tom push her up against the wall until her back hits the tiles. Something cold and sick knots in her stomach as he unzips her pants, his fingers brushing her stomach.

He puts his hand on her privates. Uhura feels like she might throw up.

"I'm so sorry," she sobs, burying her face in his starchy stiff security uniform because she can't look at Tom, can't stand to see his face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry..."

When it's over, Uhura's tears are all cried out and she's swaying on her feet, numb and light-headed with exhaustion. She fumbles to pull her pants back up, cringing away from her uncle's stare.

"We don't have to talk about this any more," Tom tells her. "Now we can go home, and your parents won't be mad any more. You don't have to bring this up, all right? As long as you're a good girl. You want to be a good girl, right?

Uhura can't nod fast enough, her breath still coming all hitchy and fast.

"So don't tell anybody about this. They don't have to know how bad you are."

The banging on the fresher door makes Uhura jump, her whole body shaking with fright. "You _done _in there yet?" yells a voice outside. "Come on, man, hurry up!"

Tom takes Uhura's arm again and she lets him, her wrist hanging limply in his grasp. Her school bag weighs heavily on her shoulder. In the hallway outside the fresher, a woman in a blue Starfleet uniform is standing and waiting impatiently with her arms folded over her chest.

She stares at Uhura curiously, but says nothing. Uhura doesn't meet the woman's eyes.

Her father picks her up in an enormous hug the moment Uhura walks in the apartment door, kissing her cheek and telling her how glad he is that she's safe and okay, he didn't realise Zhis Caph wanted her to stay at school _that _long and he was so worried. He's not mad any more.

**12.**

In math class one day, Uhura realises exactly what her world is. Fu Marcosa-17 is a tiny little point on the Cartesian plane of the universe, and thousands of ships on parabolic courses run through it, all of them intersecting for only the briefest moment before curving away untouched, unaffected. She may touch thousands, _millions _of arcs that sweep past her on their way to or from the greatest things in the universe, but she will never be a part of those arcs save for the millisecond during which they pass through her fingers.

Uhura is on the intersection point of it all, but nobody cares about her point. That's just where they draw their courses by. As the universe is graphed, she is not part of it. She is the map.

**13.**

Uhura stretches out her legs to get the cramp out of her calf, and her toes hit the bulkhead at the end of her bed. She looks down at them ruefully, pushing the balls of her feet against the closet bulkhead and forcing her knees straight. Her muscles protest their long position bent up as a desk on which to finish her homework.

Alone in the tiny, comfortable shelter of her room-- which she hardly thinks of as a closet any more-- Uhura takes a moment to study her legs as they are stretched out before her. They've gotten long, lately, every part of her getting slimmer and taller. Her bed's a little too short, now, her shoes a little too small. The girls at school sneer and say Uhura must be half Vulcan, all gross bony limbs and spidery height. They pull on their eartips and push their eyebrows up into grotesque faces when she walks past them.

Uhura kicks a leg up into the air before her, almost managing to point her toes directly up at the ceiling. She studies it curiously. She runs her fingers down the smooth chocolate line of her calf and knee, where everything has become strangely curvy. These legs almost don't belong to Uhura. They're starting to look like the legs of the models in magazines and billboards on the mezzazine, and she's not sure she recognises them.

"_What the hell is _wrong _with you_?"

The shout reverberates through the bulkhead of Uhura's room. She flinches and lets her leg fall, tucking her knees back up close to her chest and scooching back into the pillows at the head of her mattress even though the words weren't directed at her. She turns up the light pod on the shelf next to her head by another 10%, brightening it until the whole closet is full of yellow illumination and all of the knicknacks on the wall of shelving gleam. Uhura tries to go back to her homework.

"_It's a _lie_, I told you, I _never--"

"_Can't believe you'd be so _stupid _as to_\--"

"_I didn't _do _anything_!"

The bulkheads are thin, and Uhura's room is right next to the living area, where Tom and her mother are standing and screaming at each other. They've been at it for the last two hours.

Tom's been fired from his job. A woman filed a complaint against him, claiming that he'd forced her into a storage nook and pointed his phaser at her while he touched her breasts, and that he'd said he'd have to arrest her and put her in the brig for stealing if she didn't let him do it. Almost as soon as the complaint was logged, seven other women immediately filed their own claims.

The whole starbase knows about it. School for Uhura had been horrendous that day. Every time somebody leaned over and asked her _was that _your _uncle_? and _why'd your parents have to go and bring a _pervert _onto our starbase_? she had biten her lip and looked down at her desk and said nothing. She had barely heard Zhis Caph's lesson with the way her heartbeat had been echoing in her ears.

"--_exactly shit like _this _that got you kicked off the last station! Now you've gone a brought it here, what are we gonna do, huh? What am I supposed to do for you now_?"

"_You're my _sister_! You can't possibly believe I'd_\--"

"_Sister _shit_! Just because my father went and remarried your whore of a mother_\--"

Uhura wants to throw her PADD aside and cover her ears, but she's heard enought shouting fights to know that it won't help anything. At least her homework is a distraction. She can ride out this storm, the way humans used to when the Earth was huge and they dared to venture its raging oceans in fragile wooden ships. She will not let herself cower.

When the dust settles, the starbase's mastrigate rules that there isn't enough evidence to convict Tom of anything. A total of eighteen complaints are swept into the trash and ignored. Tom doesn't get his job back, though. He doesn't leave, either.

Now he just stays at home all the time.

**14.**

Uhura doesn't stay at home if she can help it. She goes to school so early that the mezzazine stores aren't even open, and she comes back late at night smelling of the perfume and sweat of her classmates' parties, because those are the only excuses she has to stay out. Her parents don't understand it. Her father's disappointed and her mother calls her a slut. Then they fight over it-- over Uhura. So Uhura stays out even later.

_There's definitely more than twenty-three people here_, Uhura thinks dizzily, pushing her way through the crowd. The entire apartment-- whoever's place this is; she doesn't know-- is packed with people, far more than just their class. The music is loud and throbbing, a techno beat that probably fills the whole deck with its bass. But this is Q deck, far below Uhura's apartment on K, and all the other apartments in the dingy grafittied corridor are partying too, anyway.

Uhura squirms past a knot of blue-skinned engineers drinking what smells like genuine kerosene, its fumes making her momentarily light headed. Her too-tall shoes are pinching and she's not having fun; she wants to go home. Where are her classmates?

Across the room, she spots four girls that she knows. They're sitting on a couch in the corner, sprawled together in part of the impossible number of people crowded on the too-small piece of furniture, and giggling as they gulp from beer cans. Uhura's eyes narrow. Every one of the men on that couch is so much older.

"_Famija_, we should go now," Uhura says, coming to a stop in front of the couch and drawing herself up to her full height. Sometimes the imperious look works to establish at least momentary dominance over her classmates.

Instead, the entire group bursts into laughter. One of the girls takes her fingers and pushes her eyebrows up, and Uhura's face burns hot, humiliated to be insulted like that in front of so many other people.

"You alien bitch-queen," one of the other girls laughs. To the man whose lap she's sitting on, she says, "She's half Vulcan, but they didn't want her. _Vergia_."

"I am not!" Uhura snaps.

"Even the _creepers _wouldn't fuck you," taunts the girl, using the starbase's pigin word for the tentacled Sulamids who work in engineering.

Uhura scowls and scoffs. "I'm totally not a virgin," she lies.

"I can tell," one of the men says. He reaches out and slaps Uhura's ass before she can dodge. "_Unh_! Fuck _yeah_, that's been banged. Who wouldn't?"

She cringes inwardly with disgust at the same time as she feels a strange flush of pleasure, proud and flattered to be found attractive.

"I want to go now," she tells her classmates, trying to ignore the others.

"Oh my god, are you kidding me? This shit's just getting _started_, sit down!"

"I--"

The man loops an arm around Uhura's waist and pulls her down on his lap. Her shriek of surprise makes the others howl with laughter again. They only get louder when she struggles and kicks.

"Here, here, have a drink," one of the girls says, still sputtering with laughter. Glitter drips from her eyelashes as she pushes a can into Uhura's hand. "Oh my god, have a drink, you'll like it."

"I'm not a virgin," Uhura insists, haughty with embarassment, and takes a long gulp of the beer to prove it. The group roars with approval.

*

The next morning, she wakes up in bed in an empty and unfamiliar apartment with no pants and blood between her thighs. Too hungover to feel anything besides the pain splitting her head in two, Uhura searches in the mess of bottles and cups on the floor until she finds a pair of pants-- not hers-- under a dresser. She does her best to wipe the crusty gunk off her thighs before she puts them on.

Uhura can only be grateful, blearily, that the chronometer on the wall says it's breakday and there's no school. She stumbles out of the apartment, wincing in the light, and tries not to draw attention as she limps down the grimy corridor. She's eight doors down from where she last remembers being. Music is still pounding from some apartments, their doors jammed open to let clusters of wobbly-drunk people vomit in the corridor.

Apparently she had sex. She doesn't remember it.

The entire starbase knows what happened before Uhura does. At first she doesn't understand why, but by the time she reaches a public fresher on M deck, eight people have pointed her out to their friends or followed her with accusing stares. She fixes her hair in the fresher mirror, squinting at her haggard reflection as she finger-combs knots out of her hair. There's puke in it, which she washes out in disgust. Her stomach is doing somersaults. Her hands shake violently, splashing disinfectahol all over the counter.

Outside the fresher, a small knot of people are standing clustered around someone's vidcomcam, staring at the screen. One of them spots Uhura coming out and points at her, shrieking with laughter, "You're totally right, it is her!"

Uhura runs.

Her legs are trembling and her lungs are burning painfully by the time she reaches K deck. Struggling to breathe normally, Uhura forces herself away from the wall and steps out of the turbolift on shaky legs. She nearly crashes right into somebody.

Three of Uhura's classmates from the night before reel back from her as though struck. One of them makes excessive brushing movements at her clothes. "Look out, _famija_, it's the slut."

Uhura's ears roar. The questions stick in her throat-- _What happened last night_? and_ Are you guys totally hungover too_? and _Whose apartment was that_? Bewildered and hurt and in too much pain to _think_, she hurries past them. They press back against the corridor bulkheads and cough-gag and giggle.

Uhura tries to be quiet as she keys in the code at her apartment door. It swishes open and she staggers in, then stops dead. Both of her parents are standing right in front of the door, her mother holding a PADD in one white-knuckled hand, but it's the sight of Tom sitting on the couch-- _bodies pressed together on the couch, her long legs thrown over somebody's lap and somebody else's hands running up them_\-- and staring at her with his piercing eyes that makes Uhura's stomach churn.

"What," says her mother slowly, harsh-voiced with fury, "is _this_?"

The PADD is full of pictures, spam posted to every chat board and com number on the starbase.

Uhura. Uhura's body sprawled out on somebody's bed, her knees wide open. Uhura's body with her pants around one ankle, a man halfway on top of her. Uhura's body half naked, spread open so that the blood between her thighs shows. Uhura's body with her head turned to the side, vomiting on her own hair. Uhura's body on the floor with a semi circle of bare feet around her. Uhura's body with somebody else's hand between her legs, wiping gunk from her vagina with her own panties.

Uhura starts to scream.

*

"You have a lot of choices to make, Nyota," the counselor says, her jaw hairs waving delicately over the PADD she's reading.

"It's Uhura," Uhura says, and is ignored. Counselor Jxrpex "call me Jenny" Xro already thinks that 'Uhura' is a construct that she's assembled, a shield to hide behind in order to avoid the consequences of her actions. Uhura doesn't listen to a thing Xro says, because after all Xro hasn't listened to her often enough to know that Uhura can pronounce her real name perfectly well.

"Life is all about choices. Do you think you've made good ones, so far? What kinds of choices are you going to make in the future?"

Uhura stares long and hard, unable to believe her ears. Xro blinks back at her with big placid eyes.

"I didn't choose to be raped," Uhura says at last, very calmly and slowly, and then she grabs the edge of Xro's desk, flips it over on her, and walks out of the office.

She makes a lot of decisions in the time it takes to walk back to her apartment.

She chooses not to be a woman who shrinks away from stares, from men, from life-- from anything. Ever.

She chooses not to let her rapists win.

She chooses not to let Tom's stare affect her when she walks in the door, grabs a travel bag from under the kitchen sink and packs her clothes into it, ignoring every word he says.

She chooses not to be a backwater hick with a life going nowhere on Fu Marcosa-17 for a single moment longer.

She chooses to walk into the shuttle bay with her entire life in the bag slung over her shoulder, buy a ticket and get on the first shuttle to Earth.

**16.**

Uhura's credits only take her as far as the docking yard in Cairo. On Earth the laws are different than in space, so the moment Uhura steps onto the tarmack she's suddenly underaged again for the first time in years. She can't get a job until she turns fifteen. She can't buy synthehol until she is eighteen. She can't even get back on the same shuttle she arrived in without a parent's permission, at least until she turns sixteen.

By the time she's old enough to buy another shuttle ticket to somewhere else, Uhura doesn't want to. She's settled in Nairobi by that time, with her own little apartment and a steady job that pays enough to feed her. The United Stated of Africa suit her well. People come from all over the world to see Nairobi, where obelisks and skyscrapers stand side by side. The searing heat and wide expanses of harsh, vibrant desert are sensory luxuries that Uhura never takes for granted. She visits wildlife preserves on some weekends and sees animals roaming free and plants blooming that she's never even heard of. And, though she knows that all of the pyramids are just copies of Egyptian monuments, built after World War III, the sight of the great triangular sentinels standing dim and purple on the evening horizon never cease to amaze her.

Uhura's apartment is on the very outskirts of the city, part of a long rectangular row of sandstone boxes sunken halfway in the sand so that the lower rooms are cool in the heat. It's considered pauper's lodgings by modern standards, but she couldn't possibly love it any more than she does. After a lifetime of gleaming metal everywhere and a constant, sterile climate, the roughness of the sandstone bulkheads-- walls-- and smooth grooves in the walk-worn floors and cracks in her roof's plaster are gloriously tactile imperfections. From her upstairs bedroom window, covered by a fluttering blue scrap of curtain, Uhura can look out and see Nariobi gleaming turquoise and green and silver below.

Every evening at four o'clock (Twelve-hour Earth time, what a strange concept. She'll never get used to it), Uhura boards a shuttle bus into the city. She's learned by then that taking a window seat near the door helps her not to panic at the press of people, but she still has to clutch the edge of the seat and breathe deeply for a bit. Forty-three minutes later, she disembarks near the city centre and walks six blocks to a bar called the Gentleman's Freckle (_What_, Uhura thought the first time she saw it). Two minutes after washing her hands and putting on her apron, the post-work rush starts to arrive.

It's bad tonight. By six o'clock, she has to take a break and duck out of the dim, crowded room. She crouches in the back cooler for a couple of minutes, clutching her tray to her chest and struggling to breathe evenly.

_Don't let him win_, she tells herself, forcing herself to stare unblinking into the eyes of her own reflection on a jar of olives. She is all she's got, anchoring herself through the storm. _Don't let him win don't let him win don't. Let. Him. Win_.

Stepping out of the cooler, she brushes a stray lock of hair back from her face and nods calmly to another waitress passing in the hall. The sweat beading at the edges of her hairline could easily be from the heat of the packed bar.

_Oh, fucking perfect_, Uhura thinks, when she sees the customer that's taken a table in her section in her absence.

"And what can I get for you tonight, missa?" Uhura asks the woman, smiling through her teeth.

The woman has her nose literally _in_ the air. She blatantly looks Uhura over, and then her nose rises another centimetre and her expression goes haughty. Fucking figures that she wouldn't even remember Uhura from last time, or the time before. "San Cristobal on the rocks."

"Sure," Uhura says, and turns on her heel to check her other tables. She knows from experience that she won't get a tip no matter how good her service is.

"Her again," the bartender mutters as he mixes Uhura's drink order. Uhura's lips pinch in agreement.

By the time she serves the drink, the woman is gone. Uhura looks around and spots her on the dance floor, her arms around a Starfleet officer in command gold. Elitist bitch. Uhura's seen her turn her nose up at dozens of other beings. She leaves the drink on the table and moves on.

Fifteen minutes later, an angry shout calls Uhura back to the table. The woman points furiously at her drink, untouched and sitting in a pool of condensation. "You watered this down."

Uhura blinks in surprise. "Missa, you let it sit. The ice melted."

"This isn't what I ordered. I'm not paying for it." She sits down at the table, crosses her arms and looks away from Uhura. "Replace it."

Infuriated more by the woman's tone than her request, Uhura takes the untouched drink back to the bar and orders another. She and the bartender trade filthy looks.

Uhura delivers the new drink to another empty table. The woman's on the dance floor again, this time with somebody in red. Uhura doesn't care. She's got better things to do.

On her next round of her section, she nearly drops an entire tray of cocktails when somebody grabs her arm and yanks her to a stop. A handful of people applaud her save of the tray. Outraged, Uhura whirls around.

"This is wrong. Again," the woman snarls. "Get me another one."

"You let the ice _melt_," Uhura tells her. It's a struggle to stay civil, particularly with the noise and pressure of the room bearing in on her. "If you'd like, I can bring you the ice in a separate glass so you can put it in when you're ready to drink it."

The woman gives her a disgusted look. "That is _not _how drinks are served!"

Uhura stomps off without another word. She delivers the cocktails and takes another three orders before returning to the bar.

"Put the ice in another glass," she says.

Typically, the table's empty again.

The third time Uhura gets called over, she's had enough.

"There, _missa_, I told you," she snaps, before the woman can say anything. She points at the glass full of half-melted ice. "There's your drink, there's your water, take it or leave it. You've already cost the bar more than it's worth."

"You _bitch_," the woman says. Uhura's blood runs cold. "How dare you speak to me like--"

Uhura slams her tray down on the table with an enormous _bang _that makes half the bar go quiet. Teeth bared, she says deadly soft, "Get out. If you _ever _speak to me again, I will pick you up and throw you out of here _myself_."

"You little bitch, you think you can--"

"_You spoke to me_," Uhura snarls, leaning down until she's inches from the woman's face.

The band has stopped playing. Uhura's words ring loud in the silence. Dumbstruck, the woman leans back in her chair and looks around the room as if expecting assistance. Uhura's manager is sitting in the corner at the bar, just _watching _the whole thing with a grin and a whiskey in her hand. Two tables over, the Starfleet officers look on in silence.

Quietly, the woman gets up and leaves.

The band's drummer hits a resounding_ badum-tish_! sting on his kit, and the whole bar bursts into laughter and starts to applaud. Flushed red with anger and embarassment, Uhura picks up the drink and waves a hand in awkward gratitude and goes to hide for a while in the back room until she stops trembling.

She manages to survive the rest of the night. People in her section leave enormous tips; people outside of her section ask the bartender to pass on their credits to her. Everybody spends the rest of the night grinning whenever they see Uhura. There are three spontaneous rounds of applause when she delivers drinks.

By closing time, the bar's all but empty, save for one Starfleet officer sitting alone in a corner. Seeing that the other waitresses have already left, Uhura is forced to go over despite the wary twist in her stomach.

"Missa, we're closing."

"I know." She looks Uhura straight in the eye and holds out her hand. Nonplussed, Uhura hesitates a moment before shaking it. "That was some show tonight, Nyota."

"Uhura," she corrects immediately, before she can process the woman's words. "How did you--"

"Uhura. My apologies. I asked one of the other girls." The officer gets to her feet and straightens out her tunic, and the movement makes Uhura notice the many, many stripes of silver braid on her gold sleeves. "Are you happy here?"

"I-- what?"

"Are you happy here. Is this what you want to be doing for the rest of your life? No education, no money, serving drinks illegally in some bar?"

"I..." Uhura looks at the floor and fights the urge to run. Her breath's starting to come too fast. It's true that she's not really allowed to work in a bar yet, and she's been getting paid under the table for a long time, though she can't fathom how this woman knew that. Oh god, please not jail, not--

"Starfleet needs women like you-- strong women. I think you could have a lot of talent, too. Think about it-- free education, free lodgings, free food... a chance to see the world, _change _the world..."

It takes Uhura every ounce of strength in her body to gather up enough spit to ask, "And if I don't?"

The officer shrugs and turns to leave. "Then you don't."

She starts to walk out without another word. Uhura stares after the officer, dazed. What hits her most isn't the fact that she's safe, not going to jail, not blackmailed into joining the Fleet. It's the fact that she's not even important enough to bother blackmailing. She's not worth ten more seconds of this tough, powerful woman's time.

"Where--"

"There's a registration office just down the street," the officer calls over her shoulder, not looking back. Then she's gone.

In a trance, Uhura picks up the last of the empty glasses and takes them into the kitchen. She's putting them in the fresher, listening to them clink against each other loud in the silence, when her manager comes into the room.

"Man, what a night," Tipella laughs. Uhura jerks upright, startled. Tipella's more than tipsy, she's loose on her feet. "Christ, Nyota, I didn't know you had the balls. That was awesome! Kudos."

"That was bullshit," Uhura says. Her heart is beating fast in her chest. She can taste all the suppressed anger of months in the back of her throat. Tipella's an alcoholic, and not a very functional one at that, and Uhura's finally had enough.

Tipella looks at her in shock.

"That," Uhura repeats slowly, "was bullshit, and my name is _Uhura_, and if you were sober enough to do your job _that would have never happened_!"

Tipella jerks an unsteady finger at the door. "Go outside and cool off," she orders roughly.

"You're damn right I'm going," snaps Uhura. "But I'm not ever coming back."

She makes it all the way to the street outside before she realises she's forgotten her purse. Half crying with laughter, Uhura has to ask the bouncer to go inside and get it from the bartender for her.

Riding high on the greatest feeling she's ever had in her life, Uhura walks straight down to the registration office and enlists. Starfleet it is.


	2. Eighteen and Nineteen

**18.**

Training at Starfleet Academy is the best experience of Uhura's life. California is greener and lusher than she ever thought any place could really be, outside of hothouse botanical gardens. The brochure pictures weren't retouched at all, to her shock.

She hasn't finished high school when she enlists, but it doesn't matter. Four intense months in a pre-Fleet education facility that is usually attended _instead _of high school have her caught up enough to enroll in her first semester classes.

Her adviser insists that Uhura get rid of her slangy starbase accent, so she takes Fleet Standard 101. Within two weeks the pidgin cant is gone. By the time the semester is over, Uhura has learned the rudiments of five other languages from her classmates, who come from all over the universe. She immediately signs up for a full load of language-based classes. She picks up proper French and Swahili, not just the post-Eugenics War Francohili dialect that is her first language.

Instead of taking advantage of the optional semester-end summer trip to Orion Prime, she takes classes over the summer. When her classmates come back, Uhura has three more courses under her belt and a note of recommendation on her record. By her second year, the entire xenoliguistics department knows Uhura. She TAs in Klingon 304 just one semester after she herself takes the class. She is granted full access to the language archives in order to write a particularly ambitious research paper on the etymological connections between Vulcanir and Rihanna, something that many scholars want to understand but few want to attempt because of the scarcity of material available from behind both the Vulcan Blockade and the Neutral Zone. After Uhura publishes the paper, the department head makes her archive access permanent.

She may write Vulcanir better than almost anybody else in Starfleet, but she can't speak it beyond a rudimentary level. Her vocal cords simply aren't capable of it. So, during the second summer break, Uhura spends a week in Starfleet Medical getting secondary vocal cords surgically implanted. She can't speak for a month afterwards. By the end of the break, however, she can manage the most complex of guttural tone shifts and poly-consonant combinations.

Starfleet gets Uhura to demonstrate her linguistic abilities in one of their promotional vids for the service. Shortly after, a movie studio hires her to do voiceovers for a Romulan character, and her performance draws critical acclaim. Almost immediately, two other studios call, asking her to do dubs for other actors that can't handle alien speech. Only classes prevent Uhura from pursuing voice acting farther, but she wouldn't trade her education for anything. She still has time to coach a number of actors in xenolinguistic performance on a by-line basis, though. And the singing lessons she had to take for the Romulan movie turn out to be an invaluable asset; during long-term "trapped" simulations, Uhura's ability to sing boosts crew morale by 37%.

This is her calling. She is going to speak to foreign diplomats and alien kings, speak _for _admirals and prime ministers.

Starfleet Academy is Uhura's haven. She makes friends, real friends, who are her age and who share her interests and who, somehow, love spending hours hunting through endless dusty paper volumes smuggled out of the Blockade in search of a single Vulcanir character with a hook or loop that compares to another single Rihanna letter just as much as Uhura does.

She also gets the first real psychological counselling she's ever had. The sessions take months and they're the bitterest part of those years in California, but when Uhura's eighteen she goes on her first date ever and enjoys the whole thing purely on the merit that she's not _terrified_. After Jessica drops her off at her dorm with a squeeze of her hand and a smile, Uhura goes inside her room and presses her cheek against the door and cries in utter relief. She still can't stomach the idea of sexual contact with men-- maybe never will-- but she can handle large crowds and loud noises and being yelled at by male commanding officers without having a breakdown.

With eight commendations on her record, four wildly celebrated papers to her name and three years' worth of education packed into two, Uhura is selected for a semester of accelerated-track officer training aboard the _Farragut_.  
**  
19.**

Serving aboard the _Farragut _is the worst experience of Uhura's life.

It's a Syndicate ship. When Uhura boards, this means nothing to her except that most of her crewmates will be Orion. She's far from the xenophobe it would take to be bothered by this. In fact, she looks forward to the opportunity to study the etymological development of military and naval slang in Low Orion, as opposed to the sexually oriented dialect commonly spoken by Orions outside of Starfleet.

Uhura is serving with a temporary rank of lieutenant for the duration of the training, as though it were an extremely extended simulation. Only eight other students are boarding with her, six "ensigns" and two "lieutenants". The rest of the crew are students from universities on Orion, save for the senior officers, who are actually officers. It's a bit intimidating at first, the rush of chirps and clicks that resound in the corridors during boarding, the foreign body language that flows in the clusters of chatting Orions students. Nobody shrugs or nods or waves; instead there are twitching noses, winking eyes, and booted toes tracing circles on the floor.

The nine Academy students have cabins together in one hallway. They double up, granting Uhura the single in a subtle gesture of respect for her vaguely known past that she finds surprisingly touching. Despite herself, she finds the smell of the _Farragut_'s recycled air vaguely comforting. Earth air might have all kinds of tones and tastes that are never found in space, but she will always be most familiar with climate-controlled, carbon-scrubbed shipboard oxygen.

Launch goes well. Uhura doesn't conduct the _Farragut _from spacedock, but she gets to watch it from her station at the back of the bridge. For a long moment after the inertial dampeners disengage, the _Farragut _floats, her nose wheeling gracefully about to face open space. The star clusters of their destination come into view on the main monitor, and Uhura's heart leaps. Then everything smears into white blurs at 240 times the speed of light and the captain twitches his nose approvingly at the pilot.

At the end of their first ever shift on board a starship, the Academy students retire back to their cabins as if they're walking on clouds, all of them nearly giddy. Uhura can't stop grinning as she strips for sleep.

Five hours later, the lights in the corridor go out and a mob of howling demons descends on their cabins.

Cold hands rip Uhura from her bunk kicking and screaming. In the dark, somebody grabs a fistful of her hair and yanks her head back, prying her teeth from the wrist she had sunk them into. A wad of fabric is shoved into her mouth and another one bound over it. She tastes foot odour. A blindfold goes across her eyes. Her hands are tied behind her back.

Trembling and half dressed, the nine of them find themselves lined up in the middle of the corridor. Uhura only knows the others are there because the arm pressed against her own is too warm to be Orion, and she can hear Fatima sobbing hoarse prayers in her native language. Reynolds is sniffling.

"_So these are our new playthings_!" shouts a man in Low Orion, the common dialect. The word he uses for 'playthings' translates most literally to 'meat holes'. The crowd roars, filling the corridor with deafening noise. Uhura flinches. Amelie starts to cry.

"_Look how cute they are_." The man is walking up and down the line. Uhura hears the crack of flesh on flesh, and Erin's voice crying out immediately afterwards. "Y_ou know how poorly Starfleet trains their recruits, no? How are they ever to serve_\--" --'serve' with connotations of sexual submission-- "--_properly aboard an Orion ship? I say we break them in_!"

The mob screams. Then the riotous uproar resolves into something even more horrifying: a slow, steady chant. "_Break them in! Break them in! Break them in_!"

"_Which one? This one? I don't want this pink-skin. This one_?" Fatima lets out a shriek. "_Too small_," the man laughs. The crowd is still chanting, speeding up.

"_I think it's one of the lieutenants. Which one of them will it be? This one? No, I know_."

"_Break them in, break them in_\--"

A hand lands on Uhura's cheek, fingers pinching her lower lip. She flinches.

"_Breaktheminbreaktheminbreakthemin_\--"

"_The precious, decorated xenolinguist! She must have a talented tongue_."

The mob explodes in a roar of approval. A cold hand grabs Uhura by the elbow and drags her forward. Somebody kicks the back of her knee and it collapses out from beneath her, sending her to the deck.

Her chest has seized cold and still, everything going icy silent beneath her ribcage. Blood flows from the inside of her bitten cheek.

Somebody rips off her blindfold, tearing out the hair caught in the knot. The corridor lights are at barely 5% and the mob is waving flashlights, the flares of light bouncing off the writhing mob of nearly naked green bodies disorienting Uhura. Squinting, she can make out the eight others being forced to their knees, teary-eyed and terrified as their blindfolds are removed as well.

The speaker grabs her chin, turning her face up to him. His features are hidden in the darkness.

Calmly, coldly, Uhura says, "_Your halfbreed mother fucked a diseased goat and cried when all she got out of the deal was you_."

The crowd whistles and chirps their laughter. He slaps her across the face. Glowering, Uhura whips back around and spits the blood from her bitten cheek on his feet. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her human classmates staring wide-eyed at her, frightened beyond belief.

They need an anchor. They need a leader. She is a lieutenant of Starfleet, and she will _not _be afraid.

"_Put your mouth to better use_," the man suggests. From behind Uhura, a number of cold hands grab her face. She lets out a feral warscream, high up in her surgically altered vocal cords, and bites as many fingers as she can. Still, eventually the number of hands overwhelms her. They pry apart her clenched jaws and shove something between them-- a gag. A rubbery polymer gag with channels that fit over her top and bottom teeth, blunting her teeth and holding her mouth wide open.

The man already has his pants open, jacking his erection. Eagerly, he grabs a handful of Uhura's hair and jerks her forward.

"_Look at this, Starfleet! Watch! _This _is your commanding officer_!"

He forces his cock past her lips, ramming straight to the back of her throat with a brutal grip in Uhura's hair. She chokes immediately, tears overflowing and running down her cheeks. Gagging with every brutal thrust, Uhura strains her jaws against the gag, trying to bite down even a little, and fails. He drags her down on his erection, the head of it pushing at Uhura's spasming throat until it finally gains way. Slowly, in obscene grunting thrusts, the Orion forces his cock down her throat until Uhura's nose is crushed up against his pelvic bone.

"_She's half Orion_," the man groans, to a general titter of amusement. "_What a _mouth_. Look at this hair, look at it. So soft-- _fuck_, whore, suck it good. This one's got Orion blood. Bet it was her mother_."

"_Bet it was her_ father!" someone else shouts. "_Human pig of a mother couldn't resist him even if she wanted to_!"

Even louder laughter.

Finally, he orgasms in her throat. Howling triumph, the Orion throws her down on the floor. Retching and choking for breath, Uhura curls into a ball on the deck. Oily-sweet semen drips down her chin. She can feel her classmates' eyes on her, horrified, but pray god it's dark enough that they can't see her tears, her cringing-- pray to any power or grace in the universe that they can't see this degradation.

"_This could be you_!" the man yells. He reaches down and rips the gag out of Uhura's mouth, then kicks her. "_Say it, linguist. Tell them_."

"_Go fuck yourself on a _teral'n_ until it comes out your horse-sucking mouth_."

The boot slammed into her stomach makes her wheeze. "_Say it_!"

"This could be you," Uhura rasps, her voice shredded raw and deep. She struggles to her knees, hands still tied behind her back, and her face is covered in tears and drool and semen but through the darkness she stares fire and steel at where her classmates' eyes should be. "And you would survive it too."

The kick to her kidneys is worth it.

The Orion grabs another fistful of her hair and jerks her head to the side. Uhura takes a sharp breath but keeps her control. A cool flatness strokes the side of her face-- then narrows into the edge of a knife. She hears Reynolds yelp, and assumes the dark silhouettes looming behind her classmates are other Orions, also with knives.

"_Kill us and Starfleet goes to war with your entire planet_," Uhura bites out.

"_Kill you? No. If you kept slaves you'd know what branding was, pig_."

The deep slice to her cheek burns like fire, blood pouring hot and wet down her throat immediately. Reynolds starts to swear and Erin lets out a muffled scream.

"_We're done-- _done_! Put them away, they're all leaking. Sleep well, humans. See you at work tomorrow_."

*

After the Orions throw them back into their cabins and disperse, the corridor lights come back on. Trembling from head to toe, Lieutenant Reynolds is the only one brave enough to step out of his room again. He buzzes at their doors, goes from room to room and makes sure everybody's-- fuck. They're not okay. He makes sure nobody's catatonic, anyway. Uhura can't come out of her room, she _can't_, but she shoves a handful of hairpins at Reynolds and tells him to make sure the others know how to jam their locks.

Uhura doesn't sleep. She seals her door and sticks a hairpin in the lock, then locks herself in her fresher and turns the sonic on so high that it makes her skin raw. Standing naked in the sonic stall, she's got her toothbrush in her hand at the same time, scrubbing furiously and spitting down the drain, applying more toothpaste and brushing again and again and again.

An hour later, she finally stands in front of her mirror, dressed in full uniform. The cut on her cheek has finally stopped bleeding, half scabbed and puffy, the fibres of her muscle gleaming in the wound. In one hand Uhura hold her ponytail, silky and gleaming; in the other she has a tiny penknife. She lifts the knife to her scalp, hesitates, and holds it there.

_Look at this hair, look at it_.

With a sharp breath, she starts to cut-- and stops. A few strands float to the fresher floor.

Seized by sudden rage, Uhura whips around and throws the knife at the wall so hard that it chips the tile, ricocheting off and clattering to the floor. She stares at herself in the mirror, wild-eyed and wounded. A hunted animal stares back. Uhura puts one shaking hand against the plexiglass, pressing down on the reflection of her cut cheek so hard that her capillaries whiten.

"What doesn't kill you," she whispers to herself, in her horrible raw grating voice, "makes you stronger. So _don't_ let it kill you. _Don't_. Don't you dare. And don't ever let them win."

*

At 0530 hours, Uhura is the one who buzzes her classmates' cabins. All of them still shaky and red-eyed, they answer tremulously only after her firm, steady voice comes through the comm. It doesn't matter that she only reminds them all to report for duty on their scheduled shifts. What they really see-- really _need _to see-- is Lieutenant Uhura giving orders, strong and confident, looking as regal and fierce as a tribal warrior queen in her uniform the same shade of blood red as the open wound on her cheek.

She marches to sickbay and comes to attention in front of the CMO, a weatherbeaten older Orion with only one eye. "_Sir_," she says quietly, low-voiced, "_I need a word with you in private_." Uhura uses High Orion, her careful words free of absolutely any sexual connotations.

In his office, he applies his tricorder to her wounded cheek. It burns and itches more than any healing Uhura can remember. "_What did you want, Lieutenant_?" He uses a word for 'want' (there are twenty-two) that carries suggestive undertones.

"_Sir, last night eight of my classmates and I were assaulted in our rooms by a large group of people. I was r-- s-s-sexually assaulted-- f-forced to perform fellatio-- and kicked. All of us received deep facial wounds_."

Uhura is so proud of how her voice barely shakes. She thinks of Africa, of lionesses fighting hyenas away from their cubs and zebra mares striking out at prowling coy-dogs with their razor-sharp hooves.

The CMO switches his tricorder off and stares at her for a long time. "_Yes_?" he says at last, slowly. "_And so_...?"

Uhura's heart freezes in her chest. She can't breathe.

"_Nothing_," she manages to croak at last.

As she's leaving sickbay, Uhura catches a glimpse of her reflection in a shining piece of equipment. Her eyes sting with sudden tears, hopeless and horrible and gut-wrenchingly miserable.

The wound on her face is now a scar, knotted and raw and ugly. It stretches in a long, livid line from her swollen cheekbone almost down to her jaw. He didn't heal her, he _marked _her.

Uhura strides back to the rooms, blue-hot rage and sheer stubborn refusal to break in front of these people keeping the tears at bay, and applies disinfectant and medical foil to her classmates' faces herself.

*

It's three more weeks before Uhura is due to make her first report to Admiral Hotep. The _Farragut _has already made berth at the first supply stop on their training tour, a terraformed moon that offers fresh food and new bodies which most of the crew has already beamed down to enjoy.

Uhura's classmates are all locked in their rooms instead-- rather, in Fatima's room. Uhura's vidcam stands propped up on her desk next to the comm screen. On it, she can see all of them clustered together on the bed and floor, writing reports or essays in dead silence. They can see her on Fatima's vidcam if they look up at it. They all have a system well established now; nightly work is completed in a group in one person's room, or two if they must. Vidcams are used to link their rooms at all times; at night the volume must be turned on so that a scream through the speakers will wake the rest of them. It hasn't been necessary yet, but they live in fear. Uhura wishes she didn't have the single room, now.

Uhura's comm screen beeps. She answers the call immediately, her stomach a terrified knot. Tears flood to her eyes without warning at the sight of the admiral's face, blue-eyed and slightly pockmarked from childhood acne, the familiar tough face that congratulated her strength years ago in a tiny bar in Nairobi.

"Admiral Hotep," Uhura greets, voice wavering only slightly.

"Cadet Uhura. How is everything going? Well, I expect."

"No, sir," says Uhura. Her chin starts to tremble. "Please, sir, we need to be returned to Earth immediately. The nine of us. We're in danger," she adds desperately.

"What's this about, cadet? The _Farragut_'s nowhere near the border, you're in no danger."

"No, sir! We're in danger aboard the ship. The crew, sir, I--" Uhura's vision goes blurry. She bites her cheek and tears spill down her face but her burning eyes stay fixed hard on Hotep's face. "We were attacked, sir. I was sexually assaulted. By the crew."

Hotep closes her eyes and looks away from the screen. She's silent for a long time. Uhura twists her hands in her lap, nails biting into her palms-- she's been growing them out. _The better to claw you with, my dear_. Finally, Hotep lets out a harsh breath and looks back at Uhura.

"This is a difficult thing for you to do, Cadet Uhura, but you have to stay. We can't recall you to Earth. You're the most exceptional students in your year, do you understand? I'm sure all of you can perform admirably."

"I was _raped_, sir!" Uhura cries, horrified. "Please, admiral, p-please, I--"

"Lieutenant, _listen _to me!" Hotep's voice is a whipcrack, cutting across Uhura's growing panic. Uhura falls silent, trembling from head to toe. The admiral called her by rank despite the fact that it's not official, and that, more than anything, gives Uhura the strength to control herself.

"Do you know how many men are serving in government positions right now, Lieutenant?" Hotep continues, now more softly. "How many males, I mean. None. Not a one over the rank of lieutenant on Syndicate ships. Male captains serve only on Starfleet ships with one-hundred percent human crews. There are no men over the rank of captain in Starfleet. There are no men on the cabinets, councils or senates of any country on Earth, no male presidents or prime ministers for the last hundred and twenty-two years. Every single government in the _world _is run by women-- women like you and I."

"Yes, sir," Uhura agrees unsteadily. She knows this. She doesn't understand where Hotep's going with it.

Visibly frustrated, Hotep snaps, "Use your head, Uhura! Orion females secrete pheromones. Over time, they develop a mind-controlling effect on men, all men, our species and theirs. They've never been afraid to use them, even before we signed the first treaty. By the time we figured out what was happening, they'd nearly taken over the _planet_\-- you know that, don't you? You _know _we can't have men in power. It's just not possible."

"Yes, sir. But I don't--"

"We need women, Lieutenant Uhura. Powerful women. Think of this as training-- the worst training you'll ever endure, but necessary training. They can't get to you with biochemistry, and they can't kill you as long as Orion wishes to remain allied with Earth, so they'll try other things to break you. Don't _let _them, Lieutenant. You're stronger than that. You have to survive it. You are the _future_, do you understand? You're the future of Starfleet, of Earth. You're a survivor, I knew that the day I saw you in that bar."

_No you didn't_, Uhura thinks numbly._ You saw cannon fodder. Raw materials at best. Get a thousand recruits and _one _of them's probably gonna turn out to be worth something_. She wonders how many other girls the admiral has given this speech to. Wonders who gave it to the admiral.

"Yes, sir," her mouth says, while inside Uhura's really sitting collapsed in a pile of wreckage and shattered hopes. "Thank you, sir. We'll do it, sir."

Hotep's ice-blue eyes pierce her. "I'm sure you will, Lieutenant. Finish this tour well, and I'm sure I'll be pinning those stripes on you for real."

The comm goes blank before Uhura can salute.

She stares at it for a long time.

The warrior queen looks back at her from the screen's reflecting surface, her proud cheek carrying the mark of suffering survived.

Who was she kidding when she signed up for Starfleet? What was she thinking-- that a phaser could make her any stronger? Or that a rank could make others respect her enough to keep her safe? Propaganda. Lies. If she had to ask these people to grant her power, how could it ever _really _be hers?

"Don't let them kill you," Uhura hears herself say. It doesn't sound like her voice. It doesn't feel like her body that gets up and walks to the door and enters Fatima's room.

They look up at her from the floor and the bed, anxious and scared, seeking reassurance from Uhura and promises of rescue from the admiral. Instead, she reaches over and switches off Fatima's vidcam. There will be no record of this, not anywhere.

"As of this moment," Uhura says, "I no longer consider myself an officer of Starfleet. If you value your lives, I suggest you do the same."

*

The nine of them get permission to beam down to the moon within an hour. Shore leave is three days long. By the time anybody realises they've hopped a cargo ship headed for Tarsus IV, they're long gone.

**19.**

All those years, all those lightyears, and Uhura hasn't gone anywhere. She's right back where she started, serving drinks to traders and thugs on some backwater starbase off all the major shipping routes. All she managed to do was trade down from Union space to pirate space, from her tiny, sun-filled apartment in Nairobi to the crampled steel coffin she calls home now.

She turns nineteen today. Just look how far she's come.

Uhura clears empty glasses off a table, nearly losing one as the table wobbles alarmingly. She catches it in time and swears in Klingon. Cheap aluminum junk-- yeah, they look attractive (maybe twenty years ago, when retro space-glam was in again) with the assortment of holographic menus and translucent coloured tiles displayed beneath the tables' clear surfaces, light shining through from below, but they don't last through one barfight. And it's about sixty barfights later, now.

"_Can I get a refill, here_?" asks a baby-blue Cardassian in the midst of shedding his scales all over the floor, holding up his chalice.

"_Can I get your money, here_?" Uhura retorts, holding out her scanner. He swipes a chip, transfers credits, and Uhura obligingly fills the chalice from the flask of ridiculously expensive Saurian brandy she's been carrying around in her apron pocket. It's payment-by-the-cup, that's how good the vintage is.

"_What's this_?" he demands, plucking at the red bandana tied around Uhura's left elbow. She jerks back out of his grip with a glower.

"_None of your fucking business_."

"_Humans_," the Cardassian mutters into his cup as Uhura stalks away.

It's her mourning colours. The only eight friends she had left in the universe-- all dead. She wears their blood on her arm.

Tarsus IV was the biggest fuck-up of her life. Arriving there via cargo ship had been straightforward; it had taken nearly all the credits they had, but the nine of them had managed to bribe the captain into carrying them as far as he could. The shipment had ended up being supplies to a little farming colony called Tarsus, way out near the edge of Vulcan space-- Free Space, the captain called it.

_Free from what_? Uhura had asked him, to bitter laughter.

_The Union_, he'd said, pocketed her credits, and spat on her feet before walking away.

Tarsus had been beautiful, blue and green and golden with ripe wheat. The nine of them had helped to unload cargo and ended up standing on the tarmack of the landing pad, watching as the ship soared away into the stratosphere.

_And who the hell are you_? a voice from behind them had called.

Uhura and her classmates had turned around. They'd all ditched their uniforms long ago, leaving them in nondescript blacks. _Runaways_, Uhura had replied calmly, her chin tipped high. _Free people. We'd like to speak to the governor. Will you take us to him, Mr_...?

The man had wiped his greasy hands off on a rag, staring at them for a long time as the wind ruffled shaggy sun-kissed blond hair over his blue eyes. Twenty-something, handsome, with a farmer's tan and a body built to hard, honest work. _Sam Kirk_, he'd said finally. _This way_.

Governor Kodos had not been what Uhura had been expecting of an authority figure. Plump, friendly, clad in clothing as equally work-worn as the rest of the colonists'-- and male. She'd never met a man in power before.

_We're a little out of the way to be dealing with the Union_, he'd chuckled, leading them on a tour down the town's cobblestone streets. Grass had been springing between the cracks, every inch of the planet bursting with life. Chickens had pecked calmly at the stones while lazy mongerels napped in the sun; children had run playing in the streets. _That's not to say people haven't tried to attack us-- they have. Never directly. A couple shipments of fungally contaminated grainseed, mostly. But it's never been a problem. Say what you want about Vulcan scientists, but they're thorough. Every single strain of crop we've planted here comes right from their labs, and they genetically engineer blight-protection into everything. At first it was just cheapest to buy from Vulcan: they're closest. But it ended up saving our lives. Talk about lucky breaks, eh_?

The others had been happy-- happier than Uhura had ever seen them. The colonists had been happy to have eight more pairs of willing hands.

_You're welcome to stay, Uhura_, Kodos had said. _We don't have to put this on the colony records_.

_No. No, I just-- I have to go. I don't-- I can't. I've... I can't explain it. I'm just the kind of person who... wanders. I can't settle. It's never worked for me_.

_Goodbye, Lieutenant Uhura_, Amelie had whispered, her arms around Uhura's neck. _God, you're just-- you're so strong. The way you can just pick up and go-- no fear-- I wish I could be like you_.

Uhura still remembers the admiration shining in Amelie's eyes, the respect on her classmates' faces as they saluted her one last time from the tarmack just before the shuttle had lifted off.

Eighteen days later, the Union ships had arrived. Tarsus IV had been burned to the ground.

Uhura had immediately stopped travelling-- too dangerous to risk somebody on the next transport recognising her face from the wanted holograms. She'd set down roots in the starbase she'd been on at the time, getting lodgings and a job. By night she pours drinks and cleaned tables in a bar where it's too dark for people to recognise her through the distorting shadows of too much makeup; by day she hides in her apartment with the doors locked and never pokes her nose out.

She turns nineteen today. Just look how far she's come.

"Waitress," drawls a male voice in Standard. Between his fifth and sixth drinks by the sound of it, Uhura judges wearily. "Can I get another of these?"

He's really too young for her to serve him, but those are Earth laws. Out here, Uhura's more likely to get in trouble for not selling him what he wants. She hands over another bottle of beer to the young man, who's sitting with his feet on the table, chair tipped back on two legs. He smirks at her. Uhura curls her lip.

All blond hair and baby blue eyes, he's a handsome enough kid-- if she gave a damn. She doesn't. He's also fifteen and arrogant as hell, from the look of things.

"Anything for you?" she asks the other man at the table, an older man with a distinct air of authority about him. He's far more to her liking, quiet and dignified, with silver threading his hair at the temples and crow's-feet of experience at the corners of his eyes. Looks like a man who deserves to carry that disruptor rifle slung over his shoulder.

"Actually, I've got a proposition for _you_," he says, with an easy smile.

Uhura's breath hisses between her teeth. "You can buy the brat a little experience from somebody else," she snaps, "because I don't want your money."

The older man throws back his head and laughs.

The kid, however, lets out an outraged, "Hey!" and lets his chair thud back down onto four legs. Bright blue eyes narrow at Uhura, spitting with anger, but he gives her an ugly, leering smile. "You know, you're not exactly doing yourself any favours in that uniform sack."

"And I'm not doing _you _any, either," Uhura snarls back.

"That's _enough_," the older man barks, wiping the smirk from the kid's face. His voice is deadly. "Jim, get the _fuck _outside and wait for me there."

For a moment, Jim looks like he's going to argue. Then he gets to his feet and slinks out of the bar, casting a filthy glance over his shoulder at the older man.

The guy looks back at Uhura, his expression apologetic. "As if I wanted to support his idiotic sexual obsession," he says. "That's not it at all. I'd like to take you on for a cargo run, just a quick jaunt out to Vulcan. Thirty credits, half up front and half at the end. Virtually danger free. No sexual favours at all, you have my word."

"Oh yeah?" Uhura sneers. "What else could you want?"

"Your incredible talent with languages," the man says bluntly, dead serious. "I didn't look at you and see a whore, tonight. I saw a woman speaking seven different languages to beings from all over the quadrant without batting an eye. I could use that."

"For a cargo shipment?" she says skeptically.

"Different kind of cargo than you're thinking." He shrugs casually, but his pale eyes are like steel as he watches that sink in. "Freed slaves. Problem is, none of my people speak Orion or Andorian, and I'm not betting on the odds that this group speaks Standard. Communication difficulties are trouble that's easier to just avoid."

Uhura studies him for a long time, so long that he reminds her, "Thirty credits. When we're done, I'll even buy you a ticket for a shuttle back here, if that's where you want to go. All I need is two weeks of your time, three at the most."

"And what _I_ need is a permanent job," Uhura replies, folding her arms over her chest. She's gratified at the surprise that crosses his face. "Long-term, and secure. Same wages the rest of your crew make. My own cabin, or one with a female at the very least. And you'll supply me with a functioning phaser that I will be permitted to carry at all times."

"You drive a hard bargain," he says slowly, contemplating her. His fingertips tap a staccato pattern on the table. "Tell you what. We'll see how this run goes, and if we're still getting along at the end of it, I'll give you that job. You any good with computers?"

"I can repair my own equipment."

"Good enough." He tosses a credit chip on the table and gets to his feet. "Our shuttle's in the shipyard, pad 37. Is an hour long enough for you?"

Uhura slides the chip into her pocket before replying. "I'll be there."

She doesn't bother telling the manager that she's quitting. He'll get the message when she never shows up again. Before Uhura leaves, though, she runs the chip under her scanner to check its contents, and her knees nearly buckle.

Six and a quarter credits. Four months' worth of rent. That's not her payment, that's her _tip_. This guy _really _wants her to like him.

*

But by the time Uhura reaches her apartment, she's got doubts, misgivings that never came to mind when faced with that wise, trustworthy face and the promise of more money than she's ever had at one time. Everything she owns fits in one bag, and the apartment's pre-fab steel walls are left bare. Good thing rent was due in just another two days.

She walks to the shuttleyard, her hair streaming out in the cold night wind, but with every step she goes slower and slower. When she finally gets within sight of pad 37, the small group of people waiting there visible in the dull yellow light shining from overhead, Uhura's given herself more reasons to stay than go. She stops walking and stands there in the cold wind, unable to make herself cross the last fifty metres of tarmack.

Somebody at the shuttle notices her and tells the others. They turn to look at her. One of them starts to come over-- the older man. Uhura just stands there, paralysed by indecision, as he approaches. She needs money but she _wants _to run.

"Everything all right?" he asks, stopping with a respectful five foot distance between them.

"I can't go with you," Uhura says, before she can think about it. The man's eyebrows rise, his gaze drifting pointedly to the bag over her shoulder. "I just-- I can't. Who was I kidding, saying yes? Jump on a ship with a bunch of complete strangers? Please. Even you have to know that's stupid of me."

"Lieutenant, I give you my word that nobody will lay a hand on you."

Uhura scoffs. "Oh, your word. Right. I'm sure that'll mean so much to me when I'm getting--" She stops dead. "Lieu-- lieutenant?" she repeats hoarsely, unable to believe her ears.

The man's eyes are kind, gentle in the softened creases of his work-worn face. "Correct me if I'm wrong, of course. Your kind of technical skill and the way you give orders, I figure you're not an ensign, but with your age, you couldn't be much higher than lieutenant. And you've done service on a Syndicate ship-- you've got the scar from that hideous initiation ritual."

He indicates his cheek, adding, "I had mine erased years ago."

Uhura's hand rises without thought to touch the livid scar on her own cheek. She stares at him.

"Why should I trust you?" Uhura asks, very softly.

Without replying, he pulls a vidcomcam from his belt and starts to punch commands into it. Quite unexpectedly, he asks, "Ever watched any FuckedStarfleet vids?"

Uhura is aghast. "Of course not," she hisses, revolted. It's a popular porn series featuring Starfleet officers, often being whipped, tied in stress positions and otherwise humiliated. It's known as 'non-con' on the web. Apparently millions of people like to see Fleet personel getting it handed to them. Few seem to know-- or _care_\-- that the stars aren't actors and more importantly they're not _acting_, that most of the time they're actual officers being _raped _in the Syndicate's sick version of appropriate disciplinary measures.

He offers the device to her, a video playing on the screen. Uhura refuses it, about to turn and walk away right then, but the expression on his face stops her. Reluctantly, she takes it. It's hard to make herself watch.

A young man in a command gold shirt and nothing else, the stripes of a lieutenant junior grade on his sleeves. He's kneeling on the floor with his arms bound above his head, while his legs are forced apart by the spreader bar between his knees. The sound is muted, but he's crying out-- screaming, by the agonised gape of his open mouth and the tears running down his face. There's a machine between his legs, a fake cock slamming in and out of his body with brutal speed--

\--and that face might be twenty years younger, might be contorted with agony, but it's the same man standing before Uhura right now.

"Why would you keep this with you?" she asks in horror, handing it back.

"I don't," he says grimly. His face is dark as he switches the device off without looking at it. "It's on the net, free. Everybody can see it."

There's a silence, horrible and heavy. Uhura looks at the ground, unable to speak.

"So," the man continues quietly, "when I tell you that you'll be safe aboard my ship, Lieutenant, you know I'm telling the truth. Anybody touches you without your permission, and I'll put them out the airlock myself. But if you'd rather not come, then that's your choice. By all means, stay. I understand that."

That's what decides Uhura. "No," she says. "No, Captain--?"

"Pike. Christopher."

"Captain Pike. I want to come with you, sir."

He gives her a long, measuring look. "All right, then. Lieutenant...?"

"Uhura. Just Uhura. The rank's not necessary."

"We don't have much in the way of official ranks, but between you and me, it might put a little obedient fear into the rest of my brats. They could use an officer barking orders down their backs."

Uhura chuckles a little, encouraged by Pike's smile. "I can do that, sir."

"I'm sure you can, Lieutenant. Now come and meet the crew."

*

The _Number One_ is small but fast as hell. They arrive at the destination to pick up their cargo within three days. The crew works with practiced efficiency, yet they're not so close-knit that they exclude Uhura (and Pike wasn't _kidding_, they're either criminally young or batshit crazy, sometimes a scary amount of both). They're a little wary of her, sure, but that's fine. They haven't seen Uhura contribute yet. She's about to earn her keep, and maybe their trust.

In a narrow corridor, Uhura is checking the food supplies stored in overhead compartments, double checking they have enough for all their extra passengers on the rest of the trip. As she's working, Jim Kirk sidles up to her, blue eyes so big in his teenaged face, giving him a gaunt, feral look that has nothing to do with weight.

"So," he says, "it's Uhura, right?" It's the first time he's spoken to her since she joined the crew. He's spent the whole trip so far just _staring _at her from afar, but with a hard, assessing expression, rather than any kind of sexual leer. It gave her the first inkling as to why this fifteen year-old _child _might be Pike's first officer.

"Just Uhura," she says coldly, preempting the inevitable question.

"Yeah? Why's that?"

Uhura gives Kirk a dispassionate look, her posture regal. "I'm from a matriarchal African clan dating back to the 2000s. Near the end of World War Three, the men of the clan went off to fight back the army advancing on Egypt and all ended up dying before they reached Kenya. During raids and skirmishes when enemy forces tried to take the city as their own because of its fortifications, villagers would scream, 'Uhura!' Instead of one woman, they got twelve, all carrying laser rifles and Songye war axes."

He looks genuinely impressed. It makes Uhura wish she wasn't lying through her teeth. As far as she knows, her family comes from Massachusetts-- or maybe it was Mexico. She can't remember. But Kirk doesn't need to know that. It's as good a story as any.

"If you'll excuse me," Uhura says, shutting the overhead compartment, "I have work to do."

"Yeah," agreed Kirk, already retreating back to the bridge. His eyes are piercing. "Make sure they're not scared, will you?"

It's a surprising request-- not "keep them quiet" or "get them aboard fast", but "make sure they're not scared". That's when Uhura realises for the first time that she may actually come to respect this arrogant, unpredictable child officer.

She goes down the gangway to the main hatch, mentally preparing herself. The _Number One_'s interior shines a bright pool of white light out into the dark, deserted grassy field that they've landed on. At the bottom of the loading ramp is a cluster of humanoids, keeping close together and circulating a bit, like a pack circling to keep its members tight together. They're unlike any slaves Uhura has ever seen, their raw animal instincts running too close to the surface, their teeth a little too ready to draw blood. Pike and the wild-eyed alcoholic CMO are standing some distance away, talking to the captain of the other ship that's sitting nearby.

Uhura catches Pike's eye and he nods. She takes a deep breath and walks down the ramp.

The first person to meet her eyes is a girl-- a green girl with bright red hair and a fierce, defiant look on her face. And at the nape of her neck, bared by the short, ragged fringe of her shorn-off hair, is the metal socket that the Union surgically implants on all their slaves. Uhura wonders how much it hurts to rip out all the circuitry wired into the spinal cord, the tracking device and punishment electrodes that need to be removed before a slave can run away.

An Orion. It gives Uhura momentary pause, but she steels herself and looks past the skin and the memories of oily-sweet semen in her mouth. They are no longer merely the enemy. This woman is as much a victim as Uhura-- even more so, in fact. Her survival is now in Uhura's hands.

"_This one's name is daughter Nyota Uhura, called Uhura, and this is the free ship _Number One_. It is that we are here to transport you to Free Space, inside the Vulcan blockade, where there is safety for you all. It is that all crewmembers of this ship are now dedicated to making sure that you are never abused or harmed again. Is it that I may know the name of the one before me_?"

The woman studies her for a long time, her eyes sharp and critical. She didn't survive through subservience, that's for sure. There's something feral about her, too much like Kirk for comfort. Eventually, however, she deigns to reply coolly, "_This one's name is daughter Shaixor Stithus-waa, called Shaixor_."

Uhura closes one eye in respect. "_It is that Daughter Shaixor is welcome aboard this ship, as are all the rest. I will show you to your quarters, where it is that I wish to learn the names of all before me_."

And quietly, regarding her with equal measures of wariness and respect, these wild, broken-edged people file onto the ship in an obliging single line. Pike looks at Uhura with open appreciation, the other captain with a gape of disbelief.

Uhura is nineteen, and responsible for the lives of twenty-three people.

Just look how far she's come.


End file.
